I found the article to be quite helpful overall. I was initially confused about setting up my system to play MIDI files. It would have been more clear if the author would have emphasized that not all sound cards have a wavetable they can use for playing MIDI. I spent several hours chasing my tail and on Google trying to play a MIDI file on my T23 laptop and an Intel 800 series chipset with AC97 sound. I slowly came to the slow realization that Timidity++ is the only hope on it.

Meanwhile, I found the brief note of his SB Live! card helpful by at least giving me a lead. I have an SB PCI-512 card that also uses the emu10k1 driver and digging out the original CD revealed a file named 8MBGMSFX.SF2 on it. A bit of Googling revealed that this was the needed file and indeed, playing MIDI files now works.

I realize some of these low-level details aren't necessarily a function of ALSA, but since much of the article was devoted to MIDI and sequencing, I think they should have been developed a bit more. For all of their popularity, modern soundboards are largely a mystery for most of us.

Once we can listen to streaming audio or a CD, most of us consider the audio to be installed. My thanks to Mr. Phillips for an interesting article with many new ideas to explore.